Sunday, March 13, 2011

Oil is such a vast, major topic , that will surely take several articles to cover in ironrye's format. First usage is dated to be around 4000 years ago, but it never really took off till 19th century. Today, oil is produced in 114 countries, and consumed in 207 countries and territories. As of 2009, there are 41 countries in the world which are able to produce more oil than they consume and thus maintain the status quo in the other 165 countries and territories, not counting unrecognized entities.. Many of these 41 countries will become net importers really soon, Brazil and Malaysia come to mind. Total population of the ( net ) oil exporting countries is about 1 345 million.
Biggest producer in the world is Russia, with 10 120 000 barrels a day produced.
Biggest producer per capita is Kuwait with 0.96 barrels a day per resident (1.91 barrels per citizen) .United Arab Emirates has 0.543 barrels per (resident) per day.Considering that only 20% of UAE 's population are citizens, it makes 2.71 barrels a day per Emirati. Qatar actually has even higher production rate per citizen, something around 3.46 barrels per citizen assuming there are no more than 350 000 Qatari citizens. Famous Saudi Arabia has only 0.475 barrels a day per citizen ( note: over 5.5 million of foreigners-residents of Saudi Arabia aren't included in this calculation).

For an average Earthling, oil production was about 0, 01237 barrels a day for 2009. That's 4.51 barrels, or 189.6 gallons, or 717 liters for an entire year of 2009. Interestingly, volume of the refined products is bigger by 4%. Thus , average Earthling got 88.6 gallons(335 liters) of gasoline, 45.2 gallons (171 liters)of diesel, 18.35 gallons (69.5 liters) of jet-fuel , 7.75 gallons ( 29.3 liters) of residual, or fuel, oil, as well as 29.4 gallons (111.5 liters) of "other"-- like asphalt, petroleum coke, still gas, lubricants, waxes, etc., to play with in 2009.

Oil will never run out entirely, simply because the price will be rising to the point at which only mineral collectors will be buying it. As for alternatives, I think finding an alternative will be a bigger problem in the long run, than not finding any. 9 billion people having dire prospects is better than 18 billion people having dire prospects...